The political structure of Bitcoin

[Technomage]

Why would that be a problem? This small group of people has decided to offer a service, we are not forced to pay. We can pay, or we can pay their competitor or we can keep our money therefor we, each of us, have the power.

I think, although I dislike how the foundation is governed (corporate + founders = always majority), I still think it's ok for them to offer this service. As long as the code remains open source, as long as miners remain independent and as long as users pay attention and stay vigilant before downloading any new version of the Satoshi client, Bitcoin Foundation can only benefit Bitcoin.

+1

This is why I'm only joining the Foundation for 1 year. They have to earn any money I send to them after the first year. Bitcoin users and the community can always found new foundations and even dump the whole dev team if they feel like it, users need to be reminded that ultimately they are in power and everyone else is serving them.

[cedivad]

Thank god that this thread hasn't evolved into an "yes, here are my shares of votes and I want this and this" excalation.

[misterbigg]

Why would that be a problem? This small group of people has decided to offer a service, we are not forced to pay.

Q: "Who is developing the Bitcoin software?
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation manages the central repository for the official Bitcoin client, as well as the alert key."

Q: "There have been many hacks resulting in the loss of Bitcoin, what are you doing about that?"
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation suggests using only certified vendors, like Bitinstant."

Q: "Who certifies a Bitcoin business?"
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation provides certifies to validate that Bitcoin businesses are following our 'best practices.'"

Q: "Waiting to download over 2 gigabytes just to get started seems to be an obstacle for non-technical users."
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation recommends that you use a hosted wallet, like Coinbase."

"A Bitcoin Foundation" will in essence become the de-facto "go-to" group when anyone in the press or media wants to cover Bitcoin or ask a Bitcoin related question. I agree that developers need to be paid, and I don't think that "A Bitcoin Foundation" poses any threat to the development of the protocol itself (the existing workflow functions well), but there is the potential here to centralize a great deal of power. The name itself is a power grab.

This reeks.

[jgarzik]

Q: "Who is developing the Bitcoin software?
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation manages the central repository for the official Bitcoin client, as well as the alert key."

Q: "There have been many hacks resulting in the loss of Bitcoin, what are you doing about that?"
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation suggests using only certified vendors, like Bitinstant."

Q: "Who certifies a Bitcoin business?"
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation provides certifies to validate that Bitcoin businesses are following our 'best practices.'"

Q: "Waiting to download over 2 gigabytes just to get started seems to be an obstacle for non-technical users."
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation recommends that you use a hosted wallet, like Coinbase."

Sorry, none of this has been suggested or wanted.

Any Bitcoin Foundation that I am a member of had better suggest decentralized solutions to merchants and users.

One idea has been a turnkey open source kit for merchants, where bitcoind + paypal-like HTTP API is provided as software the merchant runs at their own location, 100% within their own control.

[johnyj]

The OP is stupid and ignores the user completely. The userbase is, in fact, in total control over Bitcoin. This will apply even after the "Bitcoin Foundation". The users can simply start Bitcoin 2.0 with a different structure if they wish, at any time.

This is not true, especially when the protocol and client has been modified many times and becomes very difficult to read, no one can easily start a Bitcoin 2.0

In GIT world, it is essentially a Hierachy, where senior programmer sitting on top and make decisions. Bitcoin fundation obviously know this political situation very well and took control of the core dev team

[shad0wbitz]

It works as-is. We need no additions or power structures.

+1. Bitcoin is anarchic by design. If you want structures, go to something else.

[kjj]

The OP is stupid and ignores the user completely. The userbase is, in fact, in total control over Bitcoin. This will apply even after the "Bitcoin Foundation". The users can simply start Bitcoin 2.0 with a different structure if they wish, at any time.

This is not true, especially when the protocol and client has been modified many times and becomes very difficult to read, no one can easily start a Bitcoin 2.0

In GIT world, it is essentially a Hierachy, where senior programmer sitting on top and make decisions. Bitcoin fundation obviously know this political situation very well and took control of the core dev team

First, the original client is written in C++.  It was already hard to read on day one.

Second, git is not a tree (hierarchy), it is a mesh of trees.  You can fork any public repo that you want, at any point in the past.  You can then even take new changes and incorporate them into your old tree.  It may take some work, if the changes depend on the change that you didn't like, but it can be done, and actually is done quite often.

The "official" repository is only official in the sense that the main devs use it to stage and integrate their work.  You are welcome to make your own if you want, and you can even have the entire history of the project to peruse.  Well, since it switched to git at least, you might have to dig a bit to find older versions.

[johnyj]

The OP is stupid and ignores the user completely. The userbase is, in fact, in total control over Bitcoin. This will apply even after the "Bitcoin Foundation". The users can simply start Bitcoin 2.0 with a different structure if they wish, at any time.

This is not true, especially when the protocol and client has been modified many times and becomes very difficult to read, no one can easily start a Bitcoin 2.0

In GIT world, it is essentially a Hierachy, where senior programmer sitting on top and make decisions. Bitcoin fundation obviously know this political situation very well and took control of the core dev team

First, the original client is written in C++.  It was already hard to read on day one.

Second, git is not a tree (hierarchy), it is a mesh of trees.  You can fork any public repo that you want, at any point in the past.  You can then even take new changes and incorporate them into your old tree.  It may take some work, if the changes depend on the change that you didn't like, but it can be done, and actually is done quite often.

The "official" repository is only official in the sense that the main devs use it to stage and integrate their work.  You are welcome to make your own if you want, and you can even have the entire history of the project to peruse.  Well, since it switched to git at least, you might have to dig a bit to find older versions.

This is the "Hierachy" I mentioned: In principal, I can fork to any other repo and make a BTC 2.0, but how many people will use it? Where is most of the people's trust laid on? --- Senior programmers, since they are the one that know how to "get the things done", they have the dominant power when it comes to programming for BTC, so any others code will be ignored if not brought into main by senior programmer

In principle, everyone can make their own computer, he just need lots of transistors and lots of wire, but these days, there are many things require huge amount of knowledge that if someone has not followed the whole history in time, he will be dropped out due to "Unable to Understand the whole process"

Of course this is still better than those non-programmer dominant the decision making, but anyway when one entity has gained dominance power over the system, then a warning flag will raise: How will the system ensure the power will not be abused by this power user or anyone that close to him? Purely dependant on his wisdom, or some mechanism? The establishment of this fundation just showed how vulnerable the senior programmer is to politics, at least they are showing the interest of gaining more politic influence

[kjj]

This is the "Hierachy" I mentioned: In principal, I can fork to any other repo and make a BTC 2.0, but how many people will use it? Where is most of the people's trust laid on? --- Senior programmers, since they are the one that know how to "get the things done", they have the dominant power when it comes to programming for BTC, so any others code will be ignored if not brought into main by senior programmer

In principle, everyone can make their own computer, he just need lots of transistors and lots of wire, but these days, there are many things require huge amount of knowledge that if someone has not followed the whole history in time, he will be dropped out due to "Unable to Understand the whole process"

Of course this is still better than those non-programmer dominant the decision making, but anyway when one entity has gained dominance power over the system, then a warning flag will raise: How will the system ensure the power will not be abused by this power user or anyone that close to him? Purely dependant on his wisdom, or some mechanism? The establishment of this fundation just showed how vulnerable the senior programmer is to politics, at least they are showing the interest of gaining more politic influence

What do you propose to address this inequality of programming ability?  Slavery?

[johnyj]

What do you propose to address this inequality of programming ability?  Slavery?

Currently there is no such mechanism, so Gates, Jobs, Linus rule them all, and that is the reason the IT industry is still in a primitive monarchy era

[Insu Dra]

miner

voter

Not true, a miner is a validator, just like any other user who runs a Bitcoin client. If miners were really voters than those who'd vote differently would be forced to follow the majority's rules and yet I just explained anyone is able to create a fork with their own rules they wish to validate.

pool operator

representative

Not true, representatives' obligation is to represent their constituency, pool operators have no such obligation to anyone, they merely offer a service anyone is free to purchase or not.

If miners don't vote, plz explain the following page to me ?
http://blockchain.info/P2SH
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0016

I agree that the votes are not binding and that the system needs some work. But miners and pool operators do vote and have the prower to enforce there vote by refusing to accept updates that go against them.

[cjp]

About the power of miners and miner software:

This is incorrect.

Bitcoin client users vote by accepting or rejecting P2P network transactions to relay and include in blocks.  Each bitcoin client validates the block chain independently.  This is why bitcoin is decentralized.

I think I underestimated the importance of this.

So, even if a group of miners had 99% of the hashing power, they could not use that to change the rules. They could perform a DoS by not including any transactions, or perform the infamous 51% attack which allows them to revert their own transactions, but they can not e.g. change the block reward, or accept transactions that would otherwise not be accepted. If they did those things, their very own super-high-difficulty branch of the block chain would be ignored by the community, which would instead use the branch created by the honest 1% of the miners.

It would still be possible for them to perform a "partial DoS", equivalent to a financial blockade, by following these rules top-to-bottom:

Code:

if transaction is invalid then reject
else if some payees are not in list of registered addresses then reject
else if some payers are not in list of registered addresses then reject # optional rule, will typically be introduced later
else if some payers or payees are on blacklist then reject
else accept

where "list of registered addresses" and "blacklist" would be defined by some central authority.

No end user/merchant-side verification could stop them from doing this, and this can already be done with 51% hash power (so it's another type of 51% attack). Of course, once it becomes known that frequently-used Bitcoin software includes behavior like this, many individual miners would object and switch to other software or other pool operators. But ignorance among miners could be a problem in this scenario.

About the power of end users' software:
I'm afraid it's essential that the ignorant majority of end users / miners does not end up running compromised Bitcoin software. I realize now that miners (and hence their software) have limited power (though still a bit scary), but the power of end user software could be even more: hidden code in the software could silently move control over transactions from the block chain to a centralized model. If this happens to all people simultaneously (because they use the same software) they wouldn't notice it until it's too late. This power is limited by market share of independently developed clients. Unfortunately, the Bitcoin client ecosystem isn't very diverse at the moment, and nearly all clients are derived from a single implementation.

About the core Bitcoin developers and the Bitcoin foundation:
Luckily, that single implementation is open source, which should make it easier to detect compromised code before it is deployed globally. On the other hand the code is enormously complex and chaotic: I consider myself to be a competent C++ programmer, but I'd have to spend weeks to get a thorough understanding of the Bitcoin source. In practice, I think we now depend on the integrity of the core Bitcoin developers (the elite group of people who do have a thorough understanding of the source code). This is where the Bitcoin foundation kicks in.

If I understand correctly, Gavin will be paid by the foundation. This will naturally give the foundation some power over development of the software: Gavin decides what is and what is not included in official releases. However, this power exists irrespective of who is paying Gavin; at least it is now exercised in a relatively transparent way. E.g. do you know who paid Gavin's salary a year ago? And three years ago? So, on this aspect, I think the foundation is a small improvement. Besides, Gavin can easily be put under pressure by other parties as well, e.g. the government of his country of residence (unlike Satoshi, Gavin is definitely not anonymous).

About the foundation acting as a centralized PR point:
this is a difficult issue. Some thoughts:

• They just exercise their free speech right. It's up to others to judge the quality of their speech.
• This could affect the "Bitcoin" trademark, positively or negatively.
• We should have a simple way of quickly setting up a new foundation / forking the foundation, in case the foundation starts saying things that aren't supported by a part of the community.
• If the foundation is smart, it won't say/suggest things that are incorrect. E.g. speaking out against silk road without explaining that the foundation cannot stop silk road would be stupid, because people will find out automatically that the foundation does not have that power. Why show your own weakness in such a way?
• Having a central PR point could be very beneficial, even if you don't always agree with that central PR point. Look for instance at the poor PR of Palestinian suicide bombers: unlike Israel, they don't have a high-profile PR center that can explain their point of view to the press.

[kjj]

About the power of end users' software:
I'm afraid it's essential that the ignorant majority of end users / miners does not end up running compromised Bitcoin software. I realize now that miners (and hence their software) have limited power (though still a bit scary), but the power of end user software could be even more: hidden code in the software could silently move control over transactions from the block chain to a centralized model. If this happens to all people simultaneously (because they use the same software) they wouldn't notice it until it's too late. This power is limited by market share of independently developed clients. Unfortunately, the Bitcoin client ecosystem isn't very diverse at the moment, and nearly all clients are derived from a single implementation.

I can't really think of any evil code that could be slipped into the software to change mathematics.

Transactions are redeemed by proving that you know a secret number in a way that the whole world can verify.  Adding a second path to that function to return true for any other reason would be laughably obvious, and embarrassingly visible to the few dozen people that actually read all of the pull requests, and the millions that could check them later.

A variety of bitcoin clients is good for having a healthy ecosystem around the network, but the paranoia around the foundation and potential insider threats to the system are unfounded.